Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uknet!festival!edcogsci!iad
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Russian words in English
Message-ID: <CyGB1s.L57@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <38htr6$sjp@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <38jdlr$6td@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <38n6jt$uiv@uwm.edu>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 20:17:49 GMT
Lines: 27

In article <38n6jt$uiv@uwm.edu> corre@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Alan D Corre) writes:
>In article <38jdlr$6td@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> keithm@Eng.Sun.COM writes:
>>The Russian word vokzal for station comes from the English station
>>name Vauxhall.  I'll look that one up this evening
>
>I have seen this proposed etymology before, but why on earth single out
>Vauxhall? I think a much more likely derivation is the German word der
>Wartesall meaning the waiting room in a railway station, which was then
>applied to the station in general.

Er, how does one get from _Warte-_ to _vok-_?  Guy's Law?

The _Vauxhall_ etymology is presented in _Ehtimologicheskij slovar'
russkogo jazyka_ (Moscow University, 1968).  It says there that
_Vauxhall_ (derived from the name of a certain Jane Vaux, who owned
an estate near London and used to have concerts and things there)
was first used in Russian in 1777 in the form _voksal_, with the
meaning `public building with a dancing/concert hall', and was first
listed as meaning `railway station' in 1884 in Orlov's dictionary.
The second half was changed from _-sal_ to _-zal_ under the influence
of the German _Salle_.

-- 
`That's yer oan problem, Judas', they telt him.  `It's nae concern tae us.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk/chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)  (The G-- G--)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
